City Of Oakland’s Brenda Franzel Comes To Council to Save Her Job

If anyone had a doubt that the City of Oakland was in financial trouble, one look at tonight’s Oakland City Council meeting should change their mind.

Watching via live stream from Georgia, this blogger has never seen so many Oakland workers come before the City and beg to have their jobs maintained. And these are good, long-serving, proud Oakland workers, like Brenda Franzel.

Really sad.

Brenda Franzel,a revenue officer with the City of Oakland, just took the unusual step of coming to the Oakland City Council tonight and having her daughter speak before the Council first, and then and asking for “justice.”

This as the Oakland City Council considers various budget options placed before it.

“I refused to participate in the slurs about who brings in revenue for the City, and by that, I mean money,” Franzel said. “I blame the culture in which we serve for even considering cutting people who raise revenue for the city. It creates a hostile environment that makes it difficult to get our work done.”

Franzel says that the “revenue division has spent five years working as a team, not against each other.” She then completed her speech by offering that the “old revenue division understand the value of work that each section provides. I ask for the staff, please reconsider laying off staff in the revenue division.”

Wow.

Jeff Levine “These are difficult and painful concessions for those of us who have been dealing with 10 percent pay cuts.” He says it’s now time for the City Council to pass a budget that’s fair for Oakland.